The story
Dadirri comes from Ngan'gikurunggurr, one of the varieties of the Ngan'gi language of the Daly River region in Australia's Northern Territory, about 220 kilometres south of Darwin. The language has only about 150 to 200 speakers. The word is known far beyond them because of one person.
Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann was born at Daly River in 1950. In 1975 she became the first fully qualified Aboriginal teacher in the Northern Territory, in 1993 she became principal of St Francis Xavier Catholic School, and she is also a painter. In 2021 she was named Senior Australian of the Year. In her writing she describes dadirri as 'inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness', and she is clear that it is not reserved for Aboriginal people: she says it is in everyone.
The listening she means is patient. It is directed at people and at country, and it accepts that some things cannot be rushed. She describes children learning by watching and listening, then waiting, and only then acting. The foundation that carries her name sums up the attitude in a line about the river: you cannot hurry it, you move with its current.
English has listening, attention and contemplation, and each catches part of it. What dadirri adds is the waiting. It is the kind of attention that does not expect an answer straight away, and is not troubled when none comes.